It was obvious the day he couldn't stomach a hamburger that something very drastic had happened. There had just been so much fat and grease he'd almost vomited from just the smell of it. Desmond was confused and annoyed by it, he loved hamburgers, of course he did, he was American after all. Shaun thought he was over reacting, Becca thought it was mildly gross (like she had any room to talk seeing as how she lived on Mountain Dew, Cheetos and power bars), only Lucy was actually concerned that he was sick. She told him there was no Animus training after that since he looked rather ill and insisted he chill out for the rest of the day.

Bad idea that. He didn't know what to do with himself. The others were busy with what they had to do leaving only Desmond to listlessly wander around the hideout but not able to actually go out into the hanger to train or Lucy would yell at him. He grumbled as he walked his hand twisting in a familiar way that for some reason wasn't actually familiar at all. Odd. No, not just odd; fucking weird. First no burgers and now the weird hand flick thing. He sat on his bed, having finally been confined there under Lucy's orders saying he really needed to rest if he was feeling ill, and ruffled his own hair. The fingers on his left hand beat out an anxious rhythm on his thigh. Okay, more weird. He wasn't exactly an anxious person and never had had the need for an "anxious tick". The hell.

It took him a few seconds to piece that bit of information together. He'd never had a tick before, he always had to be calm and in control so he wasn't caught. But now? Now… NOW he was reliving the memories of his ancestors and purposefully trying to get their abilities. Hopefully that was in the form of their fighting skills but Christ it looked like he was picking up their habits too. Well wasn't that wonderful?

So who did this nervous tick come from? Not Altair, he was too cool to even bother feeling nervous, the creep (yeah, Altair was creepy as well. At least Ezio didn't grin like a maniac when he killed people (well except that one time…)). So not Altair, and really when he thought about it Altair wouldn't do this anyway, the blade was always so close to cutting him as well as it was ejected in and out of it's sheath that he wouldn't dare play with it as some sort of anxiety attack. If the guy even felt that emotion. Altair had the biggest balls of steel Desmond had ever known, no way he'd do this. So this was Ezio's helpful little tick than? Made sense. He was a flighty little thing, always running and wary of the guards. Sure he could kill them in his sleep at this point but he was by far more wary of them than Altair. Of course that was probably because Ezio ended up getting hit more. Best to have your blade ready should there be a need rather than fumble for it.

Well at least that mystery was solved. Now he just had to stop.

Stop.

…

Stop.

There that was better. Stupid Ezio and his stupid nervous tick. If he was the reason he couldn't eat burgers anymore too he was going to kill someone. Like seriously kill someone. Maybe he just had a bug though. That seemed pretty likely too since barely ten days prior he'd been working at his job which got all sorts of traffic and nasty bugs and viruses and-

Thinking about how disgusting a bar could be made Desmond want to go wash his hands. He wasn't a germaphobe, not at all. He just hated being dirty. He ducked out of his room, glancing into the room where Baby was and saw no one was paying attention to him and went to the bathroom. There he washed his hands and was in the process of taking his shoes off when he realized what he was doing.

"God damnit!" he cried. Now this. This was all Altair's fucking fault.

"Desmond, are you okay in there?"

"Yeah, fine. No worries," he called back to Becca who'd gotten there amazingly quickly.

"Lucy wants to know if you're sick."

"I'm not sick, trust me," he just had weird ancestor memories messing with his head. Damn Altair and his Muslim ways. They were almost obsessive about their cleanliness, washing hands and feet for all their times of prayer. Unlike Ezio. Ezio never bathed and it was disgusting. Oh, that had been fun. Living in Ezio's dirty world where for the first few hours his inner Altair had been cringing at the fact that Ezio didn't bathe more than once a week. Once a week if that at all.

He shoved his shoes back on. No, no, and no. He was not washing his feet cause of this dumb Bleeding Effect. He wasn't going to have a nervous tick from it either. He refused. He left the bathroom, Becca was still there.

"You're sure you're all good?" she asked.

"Yeah," he nodded, "I feel great," he gave an only sort of smile. "Are there any burgers left?"

"Yeah, Shaun says they're disgusting and won't eat the ones we got him," she rolled his eyes. "Too damn stubborn," she said and he followed her back to the main room where he grabbed the bag of greasy food and sat down at the empty desk across from Becca.

The smell made his stomach roil but damnit he was eating it, his ancestors' preferences be damned. He unwrapped one and trying to not taste it and savor it at the same time practically inhaled the burger. On one hand it tasted amazing, on two others it tasted like nothing but fat and grease and machine processed beef. He ate another one just to spite those two other hands because damnit this was his body and his lunch and he was eating his bad-for-him modern food that was going to give him a heart attack at age forty at the rate he could consume them.

"Desmond," he looked up and Lucy was standing on the other side of the table. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Uh-

"You're positively green."

"Fine."

"You sure?"

"Yes. Now I'm going to eat this so God help me," he grumbled and shoved part of the burger into his mouth. Yeah, gross, so so soooo gross.

"Does it even taste good? You loo-

"It tastes like shit actually. But I'm eating it anyway," he informed her.

"Why?"

"Remember I said I was seeing things?" he asked after swallowing and let the burger drop in a soft crush of waxed paper.

"Yeah," she said slowly.

"And how the Bleeding Effect helps me be a better fighter?"

She sighed, "Desmond just tell me what's wrong," she rolled her eyes.

"My stupid ancestors don't like hamburgers," and from across the room Shaun laughed. "Shut up Shaun!" he yelled. "And did you know Ezio has a nervous tick? How about that Altair's a fucking germaphobe? And I think Ezio has some sort of weird STD which seriously keeps me up at night cause I think I have it," he blathered out, Lucy and Becca staring at him while Shaun was pressed face down onto his desk laughing. "And right now all I want to do is eat these burgers to spite them because fuck them and their damn Bleeding Effect abilities. I'd rather eat," and he then ignored her.

"Desmond maybe you shouldn't," Lucy said as he finished off the second on.

"Eating here," he grumbled around a full mouth. Well that was terrible manners. Some part of him wanted to behave more like a gentleman in front of a lady-

No, no. Fuck you Ezio. Fuck you and your damn nervous tick and your promiscuous ways and the fact that you made him hate his favorite food.

Lucy sighed, "Okay," she agreed. "Just don't get sick for real. Okay?"

"Yes ma'am," he said and pulled out a thing of fries and the last burger. As she left him to go back to her own station he pulled the top bun off and piled on some fries to the top of the patty. Lets see how much they complained now.

He took a bite.

Thankfully he didn't hurl.

-fin-